


Talent Shows

by SHERlockedintheimpala



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Johndave first kiss, Johndave says too bad, M/M, johndave - Freeform, no you're not welcome in my life Johndave, what is a title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 11:33:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHERlockedintheimpala/pseuds/SHERlockedintheimpala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dave tells Rose about his crush on John, they formulate a plan together. A plan involving a Fall Out Boy song, a talent show, and a tuxedo.<br/>A plan to get John Egbert to fall in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talent Shows

It was a little known fact, though very true, that Dave Strider, cool kid, apple juice addict, and rapper extraordinaire, could sing. Very well, in fact. So well, angels looked up from their harp-playing activities to look to one another and say,"Damn. Kid's good." This was a talent that he kept hidden.   
It was also a little known fact that he harbored a massive crush on John Egbert.  
Dave wasn't sure when it happened. One day, John was his dorky, bunny-toting, Nic Cage-loving best friend, and the next he was his dorky, bunny-toting, Nic Cage-loving crush.   
But once the thought had entered his mind, it was not going to leave.  
Rose Lalonde was the only person other than his brother who knew both of these things, and the only one other than Bro whom he confided in. When she found out about Dave's crush (after the first half hour long bout of, "Dave has a boyfriend!" and loud sisterly teasing, of course), she sat in thought for a little while.  
"You have to tell him," she said finally.   
Before Dave could object, she interrupted him. "Auditions for the talent show are on Friday. Do you know his favorite song?"  
Dave sighed and nodded. "He tells me everything."  
"Sing it at auditions. You have to. If you need it, Jade, Vriska and I will be your band, but you're doing this." With that, despite any futile objection Dave could have made, the conversation was over.  
Auditions came, auditions were attended, and auditions were rocked as planned.  
Dave had been staying surprisingly calm about everything.   
Except for the day before the show.  
That was when shit went down an almost vertical hill.  
It all started with a phone call.  
"Sup?" he answered after swiping the answer key on his iPhone.  
"Hey, Dave!" the voice, John's voice, replied from the other end of the line. "Why didn't you tell me you were gonna be in the talent show?"  
"How'd you know?"  
"Rose told me."  
Damn. Dave had almost been hoping John wouldn't be there. Then he'd have an excuse not to ask him.  
"Oh. Hey, you gonna be there?"  
"Why wouldn't I be? You're my best bro! Of course I'll be there!"  
"You better be. See you there."  
At that, Dave hung up just in time to start panicking and called Rose.  
"I can't do this," he said the moment she picked up.  
"David, if you don't, I will never let you near another bottle of apple juice for the rest of your life. And I have a vast amount of resources to make sure that a drop of that AJ never passes your lips again."  
"That would be better then having to tell him..." Dave muttered.  
"Look," Rose sighed, "if you ask him, there's a good chance he'll say no. You'll be upset, probably wish you'd never been born. You'll cry, and you'll hate it, and I'll help you through it. It will probably feel like it will take years, but eventually you'll get over him.  
"But if you just ignore the fact that you're head over heels with this guy, and you never ask him, you'll be stuck wondering what he would have said, and you'll just torture yourself, and you probably won't really be that happy for a depressingly long time. So which would you prefer?" At that, she hung up, leaving Dave to his thoughts.  
The next day, he had a plan.  
The moment he woke up, he hopped into the shower and practiced the song.  
As he got dressed, more practice, and still more on the way to school.  
Under his breath during class, he muttered the song that would hopefully make John fall in love with him.   
And then, the announcement.  
The intercom buzzed to life, and a voice said, "All talent show participants please report to the band room." All Dave heard before bolting out of his chair, however, was, "All talent show participants pl-"   
Backstage, Rose, Jade, and Vriska were already setting up their instruments when Dave arrived. "Ready?" Rose asked, guitar already tuned and plugged in.  
"Of course he's not!" Vriska shouted from the drum set.  
"He needs a tux!" Jade agreed, looking up from tuning her bass.   
"No. There is no way in hell you're putting me in one of those monkey su-"  
By this point, of course, Rose had shoved him into a storage closet, thrown the tux in, and barricaded the door by sliding a music stand underneath it.  
"WHAT THE HELL, LALONDE."  
"You're not getting out until you're dressed to impress your hopefully soon-to-be boyfriend."  
"Dammit, Rose! Fine," Dave grumbled.  
About 45 minutes and very many colorful swear words later, a grumbling Strider knocked on the door, waited for Rose to move the music stand from under it, and emerged  from the closet- the physical one, not the metaphorical, although that would come soon too- looking almost too dapper for it to be a possibility for John to say no.  
Almost.  
"Ready?" Rose asked again, fixing boutineer into his breast pocket.  
"No, but we're up next so I might as well pretend I am."  
He was right. Gamzee Makara was already off of the stage, having finished his sub-par juggling act, and Terezi Pyrope was already announcing their band.  
"Give it up for Gamzee! And now, last but not least, please welcome the cover band Stuck At Home!"  
This was it. One of the unbelievably numerous curtains rose from in front of their band, and the collective sound of a question mark rose from the crowd.   
And in that crowd, in the front row. John. Sitting there, smiling, not aware of what he was about to be asked.  
And for a few seconds, his stomach plummeted off of a ten story building with a "Fuck you."  
"Um, hey. We're Stuck at Home, and, um...yeah."  
Oh, shit. This wasn't off to a good start. A really loud voice in the back of Dave's head was screaming, "ABORT MISSION YOU'RE FUCKED OH MY GOD ABORT ABORT"  
Until Vriska played the first few beats of the song.  
Jade and Rose joined in with guitar.  
And everything that was about to happen, everything that Dave was stressed to the point of breaking about, all of it melted off.  
And then his queue came.  
"/Am I more than you bargained for yet?/  
/I've been dying to tell you anything you wanna hear/  
/'Cause that's just who I am this week./  
/Lie in the grass next to the mausoleum./  
/I'm just a notch in your bedpost, but you're just a line in a song./  
/Drop a heart, break a name./  
/We're always sleeping in and sleeping for the wrong team./  
/We're going down, down in an earlier round/  
/And sugar, we're going down swinging./  
/I'll be your number one with a bullet./  
/A loaded God complex, cock it and pull it./"

As the short guitar riff played, Dave met John's eyes, and allowed himself a smile.

"/Is this more than you bargained for yet?/  
/Oh, don't mind me, I'm watching you two from the closet/  
/Wishing to be the friction in your jeans./  
/Isn't it messed up how I'm just dying to be him?/  
/I'm just a notch in your bedpost, but you're just a line in a song./  
/Drop a heart, break a name./  
/We're always sleeping in and sleeping for the wrong team./

Then it happened. Dave wasn't sure what he was thinking, but in one fluid motion, he had unclipped the boutineer from his jacket pocket and thrown it out to John.  
The flower sailed through the air and landed directly in John's already open hand, and for a moment, they were the only two people in the auditorium.

/We're going down, down in an earlier round/  
/And sugar, we're going down swinging./  
/I'll be your number one with a bullet./  
/A loaded God complex, cock it and pull it./

As the song finished, awesome guitar and bass solos ending and the drums crashing with finality, everyone in the audience roared.  
Everyone except John.  
"Hey, we have something to ask someone I have a crush on, so we're gonna go, but you've been an awesome audience!"   
The crowd roared its approval again, and caught Stuck At Home when they decided to stage dive (which worked without anybody breaking anything because a large amount of the audience had rushed the stage) and carried them.   
Eventually, Dave got dropped off next to where John was sitting, playing with the flower he had been thrown.  
"Hey."  
John looked up at the red eyes hidden by the shades he'd given him. "Oh, hey, Dave. I thought you had to ask your crush something."  
"What do you think I'm doing?"   
"Huh?"  
This was proving to be more difficult than Dave thought it would be.  
"You, John. You're the person I was talking about. I like you," he said, feigning nonchalance even while he, Dave Strider, was about to crawl under the floorboards, die, and not be found until he started to smell funky.  
"Oh. Um. Wow. Um. Okay."  
ABORT MISSION YOU'RE FUCKED OH MY GOD ABORT ABORT  
"I'm just gonna...yeah..." A few sconds after this had processed, Dave started to shuffle away, barely holding back tears- yes, tears- until he heard two words.  
"Dave, wait!"  
Dave stood straight up as his heart started beating again. He turned around to face the other boy.  
"I, um, I like you too."  
Oh. Um. Wow. Um. Okay.  
Dave walked back toward John. "How did you know that was my favorite song?" the boy with the buck teeth that Dave secretly found unbelievably adorable asked.   
"You told me. I remembered."  
"Oh. You remember the tiniest details!"  
"Only about you," the blonde shyly admitted. Neither knew Striders were physically capable of blushing or shyness of any sort, but it was apparent. John let out a soft giggle.   
"OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE, JUST KISS ALREADY!" Vriska shouted from atop the hands of the people nearby.  
John giggled again before lifting his hands up to Dave's shades. "What are you doing?" he asked as they were removed from his face. "If we're gonna kiss, I'm going to see your eyes," the dark haired boy replied, slipping them into the breast pocket of the blue button down he was wearing before placing his hands back on the sides of his crush-turned-boyfriend's face and bringing it to his lips. Dave's mind was a jumble of thought, then it was that static on a tv when it's on a channel you don't get. His eyes widened and closed. They were both oblivious to the now deafening cheers directed at them from the crowd. The only thing they were aware of was the light pressure on their lips, the smell of each other. Eventually, they realized breathing was vital for life and drew back for air.  
"So, what are your thoughts on that song?" John asked after a couple minutes of grinning like idiots at each other.  
"I'm starting to warm up to it," Dave replied with a smirk before bending down and kissing him again.  
Looks like neither things were secret anymore.  
Dave was okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> If you didn't know, the song Dave sang was Sugar, We're Going Down by Fall Out Boy, which I don't own. I also didn't write Homestuck because I'm not anywhere near as awesome as Andrew Hussie. Also if anybody has a better idea for a title PLEASE tell me in the comments.


End file.
